Lightning & Protest
Balance seeks us if we don't seek it.
Balance in its Other Form: A Poem
Lessons from the Storm
Thunder plods its long steps,
nearing. My dog's breath quickens.
He sits at my feet, afraid.
I attend to this sleepily;
It's been a hard day. I wait.
Soon it will rain. I may have to drive in it,
braving the elements in my merciless
pursuit of joy. The wiper blades
will shove rain off the windshield,
and I'll grip the wheel,
telling myself, "Relax."
Summer teaches us tension.
Heat builds and expands
until clouds fork lightning,
correcting the ions,
depositing nitrogen into the soil.
Trees will fall.
My garden will explode into life.
My dog will tremble. I will, too,
if the house shakes.
It's the sound of air expanding.
It's the sound of balance
in its other, fearsome form.
Balance Will Seek You
My tarot app has a description of the Justice card that I love:
“This card often appears to remind you that if you don’t find balance in your life, then you may just find balance is restored regardless of what you desire.” (Galaxy Tarot)
I have often had this experience. When I cross my own boundaries, do too much, and don’t take care of myself, my body will step in and stop me in my tracks. This can be relatively gentle (fatigue), or it can be pretty rough (migraines, or that time in 2011 that I had a stress-induced medical emergency).
We all have limits. If we don’t honor them, they will seek us out. It’s kind of like that saying that your feelings are going to come out: you just get to choose how. Will you address them, express them, and channel them? Or will you bottle them until they explode out of you sideways, potentially causing harm?
We can sometimes avoid our own explosions by taking good care of ourselves and accepting our feelings. But sometimes in this world, an explosion of some kind is what’s needed to repair a major imbalance.
Lightning is a Motion Towards Balance
We often think of balance as a peaceful, gentle thing. But sometimes balance is aggressive. Did you know that the cause of lightning is an imbalance of electrical charges between the sky and the earth?
“When the differences in charges becomes too great, [the] insulating capacity of the air breaks down and there is a rapid discharge of electricity that we know as lightning.” - Weather.gov
Lightning also participates in the Nitrogen cycle, helping get Nitrogen into the soil, which acts as a fertilizer. So this force, which can be dangerous and feel terrifying, is also helpful, necessary, and consequential: meaning, it happens for a good reason.
When imbalance is forced upon us in the form of grave injustice, it’s not a personal choice we’ve made, but a violent act perpetrated by the society we live in. In this case, those in power are like a mind disregarding the boundaries and needs of its body: us, the people. Then it’s up to us to act as a body, and stop the injustice in its tracks. In these instances, motions towards balance are forceful, countering the force of the original harm. Protest is a motion towards balance. Radical resistance is a motion towards balance.
Many people fear protest in its many forms. What would change if we understood it as a balance-seeking force? In a society that enforces imbalance, sometimes the seeking of balance can feel frightening to witness. But that doesn’t make it wrong. Like lightning belongs in the earth’s natural cycles, rage and resistance belong in our efforts to justly balance the world.
Thought for today:
Balance can feel peaceful; it can also feel like thunder and lightning, an enormous expression of tension that needs to be resolved. What are some examples of each in your own life, or in the world lately?
Lightning is balance. Protest is balance. Radical resistance is balance.